North faces future without old certainties

Monday's decommissioning by the IRA has induced profound change but that does not necessarily augur ultimate success, writes …

Monday's decommissioning by the IRA has induced profound change but that does not necessarily augur ultimate success, writes Paul Arthur.

Cliche Ireland Inc needs a makeover. The world - or at least our little corner - has been turned upside down. The Canadian general arrives on the podium in the sumptuous surroundings of the Culloden Hotel, sharp as a pin and brogues to match.

Gerry Adams gets down and dirty in a ploughed field in Cork. Both deliver their messages. Two clergymen, understudies for the past 35 years, back into the limelight.

And the supporting cast are word-perfect. The Rev Ian Paisley offers a variation on a theme:

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"You cannot build a bridge of trust with the scaffolding of lies." It recalls his "What do a bridge and a traitor have in common? Both cross to the other side"; and poor Terence O'Neill had to go. P. O'Neill produces a very short message - usually a harbinger of IRA defensiveness. The vox populi reacts predictably; and our leaders, Bertie and Tony, sound upbeat. That old magic choreography was still in play. So far, so good?

But we move too fast, a dangerous tendency in a start-stop process. We are concentrating too much on the immediate. We are ignoring what that wily old bird, Peter Brooke, the former Northern secretary, urged us to do by listening for "rustlings in the undergrowth" when his initiative failed in 1991. Our decommissioning commissioners took themselves off to that very undergrowth with the Rev Harold Good and Fr Alec Reid. And all of them came back smelling of roses.

The problem with this analysis is that it does not allow for the incremental change in tactics and language imposed by the tyranny of the peace process. In the wake of David Trimble's political demise the UUP has been getting on with the quiet work of reorganising. Despite Ian Paisley's posturing, the word "No" has been removed from the DUP lexicon. And despite his recent and prolonged return to rude good health, the Democratic Unionist leadership is more collective and (one might say) more ecumenical. It is now a sophisticated professional organisation that reads the political runes as well as the next.

Who now recalls their ersatz attempts at "people power" as represented by the Solidarity movement in Poland in the aftermath of the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement; and their ability to turn "diktat" into another meaningless cliche. In more recent years they can claim two public relations successes. One of their more successful slogans has been "no guns, no government". Admittedly the success of that policy owes more to geopolitics and the playing out of 9/11. But the fact remains that all shades of unionism have stuck to it tenaciously.

The second has been the constant refrain of "Sinn Féin/IRA" (and/or vice versa). So successful has it been that it has picked up prominent cheerleaders in Dublin. Indeed it may be too successful, in that the IRA adapted and inverted its meaning in P. O'Neill's statement of July 28th last when the movement sent out a message of defiance. . . and of continuity: "We believe there is now an alternative way to achieve this [ Irish unity]". The IRA has now become the handmaiden to Sinn Féin.

That is a fundamental sea-change in the political equation and it challenges much more than republicans. They know that they need to address the issue of criminality. It can be no accident that the Taoiseach met the family of Joseph Rafferty on Tuesday. Equally, Mr Ahern is all too conscious of the risks he has taken in keeping the show on the road. He said as much in a Dáil address last January when he challenged Sinn Féin by asserting that if he had wanted to fight it "in a party political way, I certainly would not do what I have been doing for the past number of years, such as doing everything possible to bring his party into the centre by ignoring all kinds of things. . ."

Mr Ahern's remarks lead us to the one undisputed fact of recent events and statements. The present conditions could not exist, as Tony Blair said in Brighton on Tuesday, unless you persevere with the things that really matter. Huge credit has to be given to both leaders and to those who have believed and practised peace from the beginning. That was the real significance and symbolism of having the two clergymen as witnesses.

Monday has induced profound change but that does not necessarily augur ultimate success. The Sinn Féin president has produced his wish-list and the DUP are preparing 50 pages of demands for the Blair government. As recent violence indicates, the broader unionist community is dysfunctional and there has been a sad absence of political leadership. Republicans are in denial. The governments are in flux and continuity cannot be guaranteed.

But the real challenge is the legacy of a prolonged and intractable conflict. In the run-up to the last British general election I acted as an adviser to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster when it established an inquiry on "Dealing With the Past". It listened to over 60 victims' and survivors' groups, human rights organisations and the Northern Secretary. It dealt with issues of memory-retrieval and truth-recovery. It was faced with many unpalatable facts.

There was no common agreement on how to define victim/survivor/perpetrator; there was fundamental disagreement on the role of the state as an independent arbitrator on judging the past; there was no agreement on whether there are any circumstances where there can be an amnesty for perpetrators; there remained a serious concern about the "disappeared"; and there were differing views on the role of funding victims' groups.

Even before we get to the mundane matters of administration this is the type of issue that confronts a new dispensation. In taking the gun out of Irish politics we have removed the old certainties and cliches. The question now arises: are we prepared to persevere?

Paul Arthur is professor in the school of history and international affairs in the University of Ulster